NBA Schedule Analysis

Charlie has covered the NBA, NFL and MLB for RotoWire for the better part of 15 years. His work has also appeared on About.com, MSG.com, the New York Times, ESPN, Fox Sports and Yahoo. He embraces his East Coast bias and is Smush Parker's last remaining fan.

Playing Out the String

NBA fans have several reasons to dread April 15th. The tax man cometh, and the NBA season go-eth... the regular season (and the fantasy season), anyway.

In the East, Philadelphia and Atlanta have locked up playoff spots -- through April 4, the Hawks and Sixers are sitting in the four and five seeds. The Knicks officially gave up the ghost with Saturday's loss to the Raptors and, like the Wizards, have been eliminated from playoff contention.

Indiana, Milwaukee, New Jersey and Toronto haven't been eliminated officially -- yet -- but they're just about done. The team with the best chance to squeak into the postseason is Charlotte -- the Bobcats sit two games behind the Pistons in the race for the eighth seed, with six games to play.
In the West, the playoff field is more or less set, unless you think the Suns can make up three games on the Mavs with just six to play. But most of the conference is fighting for positioning... the Lakers have a hammer-lock on the top spot, but the Nuggets have displaced the Spurs in the two spot. Right now the three seed (San Antonio) and eight seed (Dallas) are separated by just four games in the standings.

NBA Schedule: April 6 - 12

Team

Away

Home

Total

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Atlanta

2

1

3

@TOR

@MIL

IND

Boston

1

2

3

NJN

MIA

@CLE

Charlotte

2

1

3

PHI

@OKC

@CHI

Chicago

0

3

3

NYK

PHI

CHA

Cleveland

1

2

3

WAS

@PHI

BOS

Dallas

1

2

3

UTA

NOR

@NOR

Denver

1

1

2

OKC

@LAL

Detroit

2

1

3

@NYK

NJN

@IND

Golden State

1

2

3

MIN

HOU

@UTA

Houston

2

1

3

ORL

@SAC

@GSW

Indiana

1

2

3

TOR

@ATL

DET

LA Clippers

0

3

3

MIN

SAC

POR

LA Lakers

2

2

4

@SAC

DEN

@POR

MEM

Memphis

2

2

4

POR

@ORL

PHO

@LAL

Miami

1

2

3

NOR

@BOS

NYK

Milwaukee

0

2

2

ATL

OKC

Minnesota

2

1

3

@LAC

@GSW

PHO

New Jersey

2

1

3

@BOS

@DET

ORL

New Orleans

2

2

4

@MIA

PHO

@DAL

DAL

New York

3

1

4

@CHI

DET

@ORL

@MIA

Oklahoma City

2

2

4

SAN

@DEN

CHA

@MIL

Orlando

2

2

4

@HOU

MEM

NYK

@NJN

Philadelphia

3

1

4

@CHA

@CHI

CLE

@TOR

Phoenix

3

0

3

@NOR

@MEM

@MIN

Portland

3

1

4

@MEM

@SAN

LAL

@LAC

Sacramento

1

3

4

LAL

HOU

@LAC

SAN

San Antonio

2

2

4

@OKC

POR

UTA

@SAC

Toronto

1

3

4

ATL

@IND

WAS

PHI

Utah

2

1

3

@DAL

@SAN

GSW

Washington

2

0

2

@CLE

@TOR

Overworked/Underworked

The Knicks, Thunder, Magic, Sixers, Blazers, Kings, Spurs and Raptors all play four games this week. Denver, Milwaukee and Washington play just twice.

Home Cookin'

Every team plays at least one away game this week. The Kings and Raptors have the best home/road mix, playing three home games against one on the road.

The Suns play three times -- all on the road -- making their chances of catching Dallas even less likely.

Let the Kids Play

The NBA goes dark on Monday this week -- the NCAA Title matchup between North Carolina and Michigan State is the only game in town.

That means a compressed schedule for the pros, with most teams playing the same number of games, but with one less day in the schedule. That makes for a lot of back-to-backs and little rest -- at a time when players need the rest the most.